Infections While Paddling

 

 

As Fraser so helpfully reminded us at last month’s meeting, many of our club members have suffered serious infections as a result of cuts or abrasions they incurred on our trips. 

Rudy evidently had an infection that almost cost him a leg. Mark showed up to several meetings with his foot in a medical boot while antibiotics worked to fight the infection.
And two years ago on a trip to Lake Livingston, I stepped on a nail getting out of my boat during lunch, and spent the next month in and out of the hospital, getting my foot operated on, and almost losing it to an infection.

Several years earlier, I had gone kayaking and swimming while my knee had scabbed over from a bicycling accident, and acquired a MRSA infection (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus). That did not go well, and I spent another couple of months receiving antibiotics.

We all have either experienced such an infection, or know someone who has.

DON’T GO NEAR THE WATER! Oh, wait. No. That is not the solution.

We participate in a sport where we are constantly banged up, suffer cuts and bruises, and occasionally scrapes and puncture wounds while in polluted waters.

Very often, we just rinse them off, or dab at them with a towel, maybe put a bandaid on them, and carry on.

There are serious consequences, and possible LIFE THREATENING CONSEQUENCES, to ignoring simple cuts, scrapes or punctures while in or around the water.

Don’t play around. This is serious and you might die, or require an amputation.

Carry a first aid kit with antiseptic wash, or betadine, or alcohol, to wash a wound. Have bandages that can cover a wound. Once you have cleaned and bandaged it, keep it out of the water to let it heal without getting re-infected. If it doesn’t heal in a couple of days, get it looked at by a doctor.

If you have a deep wound, or a puncture wound, such as the nail that went through my foot, get it looked at by a doctor AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. Simply washing and treating it with Neosporin WON’T WORK. If it doesn’t respond to the antibiotics from the doctor, escalate the situation until it does. I saw two different doctors who gave me different antibiotics over the course of a week, before the third doctor sent me to the emergency room of the local hospital, where yet another doctor operated on my foot and knocked down the infection from the inside. And I spent the next week in the hospital recovering and was off work for another two weeks before I could go back to work.

The risk of deadly infections from what we do is serious. Don’t play around with it.

 

Terry searching through a first aid kit:

 

Terry Cleaning the wound:

 

 

Terry applying a bandage:

 

The author, Harmon Everett